Majora's Mask Novelized
by Johnny Vanda
Summary: Traveling through a Misty Forest in search of a lost friend, the Hero of Time is suddenly thrust into a strange, parallel world called Termina and forced to save it from the looming threat of a terrifying, falling Moon. He has only three days to prevent the End of Everything. This text will be as faithful to the actual plot as possible and use the actual, in-game dialogue.


Majora's Mask Novelized

By: Johnny Vanda

Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Zelda or any characters herein.

Author's Note: This text was created for entertainment purposes and for literary practice, and it is not to be taken seriously in any manner. How far it'll progress is currently unknown, but we'll find out. There won't be any original characters, and I'll be staying as true to the actual dialogue and events of the game as possible. If there are any mistakes or continuity errors (either in the story itself or in its adaptation of the Zelda Universe), please inform me so I can correct it. Thank you for your time; please enjoy this story!

Prologue - Through the Misty Forest

A cold, gray mist had settled over the forest during the long night. The trees there were tall, thickened, and stretched so high that their tops were hidden by the fog, and there were no branches or gnarls to be seen anywhere near to the ground. The forest floor was barren, brown, and lifeless, save a rare patch of grass that grew and swayed lonely in the gentle, wafting breeze. In the mist, a soft clopping echoed distantly but came slowly closer. And with them came the Hero of Time astride his small but faithful mare, Epona. From far to the west he had come, over mountains and rivers and through countless perils and dangers. Far from Hyrule had come the Hero of Time, Link, he who had slain the ghastly horrors of Ganon and helped to banish the monster himself into the shadows from whence his foul spirit initially crept forth. Long had been Link's travels, for he had come to see the eastern reaches of the Lost Woods, through which none without a fairy guide had ever passed without failing to shadow and the fate of wandering death. If not for the help of the Kokiri, his friends of a seemingly lifetime ago when his childhood was innocent and sleepy, he would likely have never found the other side safely; even Mido had, in his own way, tried to be helpful, but he was likely just overjoyed to see the Hero depart and wanted it as swiftly as possible.

None but the dwellers of the Woods had ever crossed through them before, but Link had, and now he traveled far beyond it and in another forest entirely. Epona gave a whiny as she trotted along, and with each step of her hoof into the hard earth her eyes glanced warily into the fog. Link matched the mare's worry, for in the mist he too felt a presence of shadow and gloom unlike any he had ever felt before. It was not one of rage and envy as Ganondorf's had been, but instead something so foul as to be beyond his reckoning. For a brief moment, he thought that he saw a glimmering of two yellowed gemstones, perfectly rounded, that hung suspended in the fog with two foxfires, one dark and one light, about them, but the illusion was gone before the Hero could put his hand to hold the hilt of his small sword. After a moment, he decided it was only his worry getting the better of him and proceeded cautiously forward. The presence remained. Discerning it further, Link felt that it was not a feeling of wickedness but, strangely, hope. The gloom brought shadow and nothingness, yet, for some reason, the presence saw that as kindness and mercy; for what reason and to what extent, the Hero did not know. His thoughts soon wandered elsewhere and to the departure that had taken him from Hyrule.

Suddenly, a memory was fresh in his thoughts of her face as he had left her; the Princess Zelda had been devastated by his insistence to go, though at the same time she had understood the need. The memory of their battle together against the King of Evil had been lost to time's cruel flow, but a faint hinting of it had survived on the waves of eternity just long enough for her to see while dreaming. Despite how shortly they were acquainted at that time, she had given him the blue Ocarina that he carried proudly with him, the one he had carried through great adventure and triumph: the Ocarina of Time. The elongated instrument was kept safely in his pouch, where no harm would hopefully come to it. Thinking of it brought the young boy's mind to worry, and he halted his travel for a moment to check on it; the Ocarina was still safely stored, so the journey continued. It had been a long and winding road. He knew nothing of what had become of the beloved friend that he sought except that she had gone east, and so eastward he had went and still did.

That forest in which he and Epona wandered was grim and wicked. It existed on no map he knew, and he had no name to give to it except to call it the Misty Forest, as that was indeed what it was if it had no name to give itself. His thoughts became clouded as a faint lullaby came into his ears, and he thought of the Princess again. However, he realized soon that it was not truly the royal song that he remembered so intrinsically but instead a faint chiming. For a moment, he thought he saw a light pass by him before another did the same. Then, Link heard a ringing, like a faint but tiny bell that was held by an unseen specter, and then felt only a sudden tumble before everything was taken by darkness. Faintly, while dreaming, Link heard voices. One was high and shrill, not unlike a voice he longed to hear but still distinctly different. Another was similarly meek but deeper. The last, though the first to speak, was playful and giggled aloud with glee.

"You two fairies did great!" called the voice with a laugh. Link's hearing clouded after that. He was flipped over by a soft force, but he still could not move or open his eyes. Something felt his body as if searching, groping. Then, there was a pressure on Link's side, and he heard something open as a weight left his person. Vaguely, the Hero heard the meek voice, distorted, speaking in great but far-off echoes of which only one word was intelligible: ocarina.

A soft echo of a note carried through the forest, and it was followed by a bout of delighted tittering. After a few moments, it came again, though with a different note, and a similar laughter followed it. It was after the fifth of this odd sequence that light at last came to Link's darkened mind, and he slowly sat up. Slowly, pained, he turned and saw what had brought him to the ground. There was a strange imp, no larger than a child, who seemed to be made of straw and cloth; the thing's back was to Link, but the appearance was somehow familiar but forgotten at once. It was as if a faint memory was tickling at the back of the Hero's mind, but he ignored it in his anger. Two fairies hovered near the imp, and Link recognized them as the lights that had passed him. At that moment, he realized what had happened: the fairies had spooked Epona and caused the mare to rear, which had thrown Link from her back and brought him to land harshly on the rigid soil. Standing, his shuffles were not silent. The fairies froze in shock, and, after giving a final, ignorant blow into the stolen instrument, the imp jumped with fright and slowly turned to face him.

An evil unlike anything Link had ever seen shone in the imp's eyes, for they were not tiny, glowing, almost playful spheres of light and humor that the Hero's memory insisted they should be but horrible, yellow monstrosities that he had, before, mistaken as vile gemstones. The eyes were adorned on a horrible, heart-shaped, purple mask, marked with ritualistic runes, with sharp, spiked protrusions along its sides. The golden terrors stared forever cold and listless, as if waiting for some great event that was yet to come but dearly wanted. Seemingly coy and unaware of his own wickedness, the imp sheepishly cried out in surprise and hid the bright Ocarina behind his back in a childish attempt; had the circumstances been different, Link would have found humor in the act, but, staring into the hateful eyes that forever returned an eternal gaze, he knew no such humor.

Seeing the precious Ocarina in thieving hands, Link's instinct acted before he realized it. With a sudden lunge, he leapt to grab the imp. However, the creature was too quick, and he leapt so high that he landed onto Epona. The mare was immediately startled by the presence of a stranger on her back and bolted, but not before Link was able to grab onto her as she went past. He held on tightly to Epona's side as the familiar imp tried his best to throw the warrior's grip off of her. The mare's hooves galloped hard against the soil, and she would not slow despite unknowingly dragging her master behind her. After a long struggle, the imp succeeded to throw the Hero by turning sharply around a giant tree stump, and Link fell with a roll into the dirt. The imp laughed again, and then he and the fairies that followed him disappeared into the darkened passage inside of an enormous, hollowed log. Link stood and ran from the plain, which, aside from the large stump, was filled with small but hearty shrubberies, and went into the log after the thief. The other side held another pit, but this one had several other stumps near to each other that approached a slight cliff; there was no sign of Epona or the imp. Link climbed the stumps, leaping over gaps between them, and ran into a small, cavern opening overlooking the drop.

As he ran in the dark, all light left. It was only when he stepped onto the bare edge of the precipice that the Hero realized where he stood. By then, his balance was thrown off as he went with it and fell screaming into a high abyss. His fall was long but fast. All around the boy, there appeared images in the shadow that passed him: a spinning clock, an ocarina not unlike his, the face of a Deku Scrub, the face of a Zora, the face of a Goron, several others, and, most noticeable of all, the evil mask that still stared endlessly. The world itself changed and distorted as it became a twisted but altered perversion of itself. Then, Link landed at last with a slight bounce. He had fallen onto something soft and springy; pink petals swayed softly from the force of his landing. He lay on an enormous but flattened flower that sat in a shallow pool of a small cavern. He stood and stared down at the strange flower in wonder for a moment before looking about the cavern as two bright beams of light suddenly shined down. On the other side of the pool, there was a bank with two torches flanking a closed, stone door. Silhouettes were there, within the place where the two beams of light met. Two were small balls of light, familiar fairies, but the other was larger and had familiar, yellow eyes. However, all three were floating suspended in the air. Unlike the subtle suspension of the Hover Boots, which Link remembered vaguely from his lost lifetime, the imp remained aloft indefinitely. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness after a moment, Link could see them clearly, and the imp laughed again. This time the laughter was more grim but still humored.

"What's with that stupid horse of yours?" asked the imp with a huff. "It doesn't listen to a word that's said to it. There's no point in riding a thing like that, so I did you a favor and got rid of it."

Then, the imp laughed yet again. Link reeled in shock; Epona had been his faithful companion through time and turmoil. Thinking of the mare brought the young warrior's thoughts to the ranch from which he had bought her, and he felt guilty for the loss; he had promised the kind ranch girl Malon that he would take care of her favorite horse, and he had failed her. Still, he refused to believe that the imp could dispose of his steed so quickly, but his expression became troubled anyway. The imp, noticing, said,

"Aww, boo-hoo. Why the sad face? I just thought I'd have a little fun with you. Oh, come now. Do you really think you can beat me as I am now? Fool!"

As the imp spoke, his voice changed and became darker, though still the same somehow. The eyes of his foul mask began to glow brighter and more menacingly. He began to shake his head in rhythm, and a dark magic emanated from him that brought Link to clutch his temples and cry out in terror. A vision appeared in his mind that the Hero could not explain or comprehend. He stood in total, cold darkness. For an instant, he could see threatening figures appear before vanishing. Then, they came again, and then they were gone again. Finally, the figures appeared completely to reveal themselves as Mad Deku Scrubs that surrounded Link on all sides. Their eyes glowed red and empty, as if all humanity and kindness had left them as empty husks of hate and evil. Suddenly taken by terror, Link ran. He ran as swiftly as his legs would carry him. Behind him, a Mad Scrub larger than all others began to rise up from shadow. When it was finally revealed in its entirety, it came forward to devour the Hero, and he was engulfed by the darkness and became trapped within the body of the Deku Scrub. Then, the vision passed, and Link again stood in the cavern with the imp, who slowly stopped shaking his head.

Confused by the odd dream, and its apparent lack of purpose, Link looked over the water at the imp and stared in defiance. However, a reddened glow from the water caught his eyes, and he realized that it was actually his eyes that gave them. In the pool, Link saw a reflection of a small Deku Scrub that wore a familiar hat and green clothing. When the Hero moved his arm, the Scrub moved his, and it took several moments for the true horror of what had happened to register in the boy's mind. Then, he held his head and screamed, but the voice that he heard was not his; it was higher and distorted. The imp was completely overjoyed by the Scrub's terror, and he gleefully giggled to himself again. He said something, but Link was still too shocked by his metamorphosis to listen.

It was not until a sudden scraping sound echoed through the cavern that the Scrub's attention turned from his own body. The door at the far end of the cavern slid up into the ceiling, and the imp and his fairies floated into a wooden hallway beyond it. Link, realizing his chance to force the demon to transform him back to his proper body was fleeing, ran over the shallow pool and to the door. The lighter fairy came back at him and, with quickened flights forward, threw herself mockingly at his face. After several strikes, the weakened Hero fell helplessly to the floor and stared up at the fairy in confusion. The stress of his change, added to how similar the fairy reminded him of the lost friend for whom he searched, had rendered him helpless. The white fairy glared at him for a moment before she slowly floated towards the door. The darker fairy was on the other side. The imp was as well, but he rounded a corner and disappeared. The dark fairy called out to the lighter one in shock a moment before the door slammed down and shut. It took a few seconds for the white fairy to realize what had happened. When the true trouble was recognized, the little glowing light flew swiftly to the door and called out frantically to her friends on the other side.

"Skull Kid, wait for me!" She cried. "I'm still here! Tael, you can't leave without me!"

Frantic, she began to throw herself, as she had done to Link, over and over at the door, but it was in vain; the hard stone would not budge. At last, she stopped and slumped in defeat for just an instant before turning to the Hero and crying,

"You! If I wasn't dealing with you I wouldn't have gotten separated from my brother! Well, don't just sit there, Deku boy. Do something! Why are you looking at me like that? What, is there something stuck on my face? Will you stop staring and just open the door for me? Please? C'mon, a helpless little girl is asking you, so hurry up! Oh, Tael, I wonder if that child will be all right on his own?"

Annoyed, but understanding he had no choice anyway, since he had to pursue the imp, Link ran forward to the door. Between the dim glow of the torches, he opened it. The stone slid into the ceiling as if automatically, and he and the white fairy entered. He passed through the decorated log and stepped into a larger room as the fairy called after him.

"Hey, wait for me!" She said, then stammering. "Don't leave me behind! So, um, that stuff back there, I, um, apologize, so… take me with you! You wanna know about that Skull Kid who just ran off, right? Well, I just so happen to have an idea of where he might be going. Take me with you, and I'll help you. Deal? Please?"

Link paused to consider it. He was not thrilled about the idea of joining with the fairy that had caused him to lose his horse and betray the trust of his redheaded friend back in Hyrule. Before he could answer, the fairy went on as if he had agreed, and the matter was closed without his decision. He would need her help to find the Skull Kid, as she had said, so he allowed the temporary partnership with complaint.

"Good, so then it's settled!" said the fairy after a short pause. "Now then, I'll be your partner. Or at least until we catch that Skull Kid. My name's Tatl, so, um, nice to meet your or whatever. Now that we've got all that straightened out, can we stop messing around and get moving? If I figure something out, I'll tell you. Hopefully you'll manage to get by without my help until then!"

Link could only shake his head in wonder; the fairy Tatl had no idea with whom she had partnered. With their conversation finished, the Scrub at last was able to look about the new room he had entered. It was large and tall, though completely enclosed. Link and Tatl were on a tall platform, on which one of the pink flowers onto which Link had fallen before grew readily. The pit beneath the platform was the entirety of the chamber, save a second platform on the far wall that had another door, the only visible exit. Shrubs and flowers grew in the chambers and on other, though smaller, platforms about the room. With the walls being too sheer to climb, the other platform seemed to be a wanted dream that could never be accomplished. With his odd ability to levitate, the imp had likely had no trouble crossing it, but Link was not so fortunate. Trapped and realizing that there was no escape, a burning anger in the Hero's heart filled him as he thought of his new curse and the loss of his precious instrument; he was eased only by knowing that Zelda and Malon would never hear of the thefts.

The fiery rage would not quell. However, an instinct rose in his chest amid the anger. The Scrub wanted nothing more than to burrow into the bud of the pink flower in front of him and hide there; he was finished doing that before he regained control of himself. The interior was warm and inviting. It felt safe, like a bed of fresh linens after the longest journey. The last moment he had felt so at peace had been the final sleep before the Deku Tree summoned him and his life of adventure began, at least, the portion of it before the troubled premonition had begun. The moment that he allowed his body to be accepted into the warm embrace of the flower's insides, Link let out a sigh of content and joy. For one wonderful, peaceful moment, he was home. Unbeknownst to the Hero, Deku Scrubs naturally used such buds for protection and safety, as they shared the instinct that he was feeling. The buds served as simple houses for the creatures to rest but also had another purpose. Link's wooded snout stuck out of the top of the flower, blending in well as natural camouflage, but he knew that he could not stay there.

The instinct was gone, so he let himself loose of the flower's tightness. A sudden springy launch sent the Scrub rocketing ten feet into the air above the flower. However, another instinct had come over him, and Link had felt two stems, which he had grabbed, inside of the bud. The stems sprouted into two flowers of many petals, which spun strongly around their stems. The lift was enough to bring the Scrub to hover, though his altitude was slowly dropping; he leaned forward and the natural propel of the spinning flowers brought him to the far platform before the pink petals broke free of the stems and spread out on the air like forgotten feathers. Each petal fell slowly to meet with the ground, but Link and Tatl had already passed through the doorway and into the next area by then.

Though still unhappy with it, Link was somewhat thankful for his transformation. If it weren't for that, he would have never been able to make it across the gap to pursue the imp. He was even more thankful as he looked about the new chamber. With enough effort, he may have eventually been able to cross the previous chamber or climb it; there was no such hope in the new one. The floor was so far from the platform on which the Scrub stood that only darkness and shadow were beneath him. Many platforms, each with the pink flowers, were spread about the chamber. Great tree roots, thicker than the trunks of many lesser trees, snaked from the ceiling and down into the darkness. Far to Link's right, behind one of these mighty roots, he could see another hollowed log acting as a passage by a small, gnarled tree. Using his newfound flight abilities, the Scrub again embraced the warm protection of the flower buds and burst free of them to fly across the gaps between the many platforms. On the first platform he saw a small chest. Inside, the Hero found Deku Nuts, the small nuts that would produce a blinding flash when struck against the ground; he took them and continued.

Tatl followed him patiently and said nothing until they came to the second-to-last of the platforms. It was there that she at last noticed the strange tree near the door. She flew to it and called for Link to come as well. He did, and then he saw that the wooded stub of a growth was not simply a sprouted tree but one with a face. It reminded him for a moment of the Great Deku Sprout of his lost future, except that its face was different and far more troubling. The gnarled tree had a saddened and distorted expression with empty eyes. Except for being motionless and dark, it seemed alive, judging from its few tendrils with green leaves, and almost as if it had once been moving and vibrant. Link stared at it for a long time as if it were someone he knew but could not recognize; at last, he realized the face matched the one that he had seen staring back at him in the reflection of the shallow pool before, the face that the Hero now wore and in which he now lived.

"It's strange, but the way you look right now sort of looks like this tree." said Tatl, noticing the similarity as well. "It looks all dark and gloomy, almost like it could start crying at any second now. How sad…"

She trailed off and said no more. Link said nothing in reply either, for his feelings matched the tree's. There were no words of which he could articulate that could possibly explain the sorrowed and dark feeling in his heart at that moment. With his mood dark and heavy, he passed through the hollowed log near the small tree and left it behind him as he passed into shadow. The world became twisted and hateful around him, as if he was walking from one world and into another entirely; the distortion was not unfamiliar to him, as he had experience another in a temple far away, but the effect was now one of the mind and not of monstrous magic. The passage stretched and twisted until passing through a square exit, which Link entered at last. Ahead of him, a great waterwheel sat nestled at the base of a wooden walkway that twisted upward around it and the large, stone pillar behind the wheel. A strong but small river below it pushed the wheel to turning perpetually. There was a dank feeling in the air, and moss covered everything. As he stared as the mesmerizing turning, two halves of a great, metal door suddenly shut behind him and forever separated the Hero from the Misty Forest. Without hesitation, Link ascended the railed walkway until he reached its top. The floor there was stone bricks with a single, square hole in the center from which a cylindrical shaft of wood rose into the ceiling of the structure, which Link now realized was a tower; the shaft turned slowly and matched the pace of the waterwheel below. Above the Scrub, there was a sound of many great gears turning and working together in unison with a strange click each second, but he could not see them. Across from the walkway was a small rise of steps that lead to a doorway with a giant, separated door.

As he stepped near to the door, a familiar face entered the warrior's thoughts. For a moment, Link saw a memory of Hyrule far away. There, in the Market of the Castle Town, a shop sat happily and vibrantly among the many stalls and citizens. Inside, there were shelves with great masks, some of which Link had worn in a long-gone lifetime to hide his own face and humor the people of Hyrule during his more whimsical moods. He terrorized people with his Gerudo Mask, save the Gerudo themselves, who were not fooled. He looked into the secrets of the Gossip Stones with the Mask of Truth and learned many interesting things about the people of the land. He even caused Darunia, Big Brother of the Gorons of Death Mountain, to laugh at his Goron Mask. Yet these humble and joyed memories, several of the few the Hero had to hold in his misleadingly short but dark life, was not what he saw there with him in that strange tower; he saw the smiling face of the Happy Mask Salesman, the thin, redheaded man of purple raiment who had owned that shop of masks and had no given name that Link knew.

"You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" asked a familiar voice. Link turned. And, there the Salesman indeed stood at the top of the walkway with his hands clasped together and his perpetual smile lingering despite the darkness. He was the same as Link remembered except he wore a great pack on his back with many different masks hanging from each side of it. Tatl hid behind Link in fear, but she rose high enough to peak from above his hat to watch the strange Salesman. As the great gears above them continued to turn, Link walked up to the Salesman and began to speak with him; his speech surprised Tatl, as the Hero had yet to say anything to her. Link asked the man who he was to confirm if he was indeed the memory that he remembered or if his passage into the strange new world in which he had found himself had tricked him.

"I own the Happy Mask Shop." said the Salesman, confirming it. "I travel far and wide in search of masks. During my travels, a very important mask was stolen from me by an imp of the woods."

Link paused at the statement; he would never forget the evil, yellow eyes of that foul mask or what its power had done to him, but he pushed it from his thoughts before the memory consumed him. The Salesman continued.

"So here I am at a loss," He said. "And now I've found you. Now, don't think me rude, but I've been following you, for I know a way to return you to your former self. If you can get back the precious item that was stolen from you, I will return you to normal. In exchange, all I ask is that you also get back my precious mask that the imp stole from me."

Link scoffed at the request and wisely mentioned that the imp had had the power to bring that terrible fate on him in the first place.

"What? Is it not a simple task?" replied the Salesman. "Why, to someone like you, it should be by no means a difficult task. Except, the one thing is, I'm a very busy fellow, and I must leave this place in three days. How grateful I would be if you could bring it back before my time here is up! But yes, you'll be fine. I see you are young and have tremendous courage. I'm sure you'll find it right away. Well then, I'm counting on you."

After nodding, Link turned and at last stepped through the doorway, pushing the decorated, wooden door aside as he went. It was nearly six o' clock in the morning exactly when Link and Tatl stepped out into the morning sun. The area into which he had come was an assembly surrounded on every side by tall, stone walls; across from the Scrub, there were many people in the area. Several carpenters worked to construct a small tower in the plaza, a guard stood watch in an archway that was darkened but apparently left to beyond the walls, a dog strutted around the tower, a young boy with blue hair and a Keaton mask was putting a letter into a small housing, which Link assumed was a mailbox, and a man stood on the incomplete tower and stared upwards with, oddly, fear and marvel. As the Scrub looked about in wonder, Tatl suddenly entered his vision and began speaking.

"He gives me the creeps!" She said, and Link did not disagree. "That mask salesman was the, er, sorry, just thinking aloud. But three days? Even if we never sleep, that still leaves us with a measly seventy-two hours! Talk about demanding! Well, don't just stand there! We're going to see the Great Fairy! Look, you wanna find the Skull Kid, don't you? The Great Fairy will know what he's up to. She watches over everything. And, just between you and me, the Skull Kid is no match for the Great Fairy. Go to shrine near the North Gate. You'll find the Great Fairy in there!"

As Link stepped out from the overhang of the doorway, an evil feeling, similar to that he had felt from the wicked mask, suddenly weighed down on the world as he felt a cold come over him. The warmth of the sun's rays, which he had expected to feel, was absent as a great shadow was cast down on the plaza. Looking up, he saw only the edge of the moon, mostly obscured by the tower, above him. It seemed larger than it had always seemed to be in Hyrule, but he ignored it and brought his focus back to his task. Distantly, a cucco crowed and announced the end of the long night and the beginning of the First Day. It was six o' clock. The dawn had come, and Link knew that, as Tatl had said, he had only a short while to meet the deadline. After avoiding the growling dog in the plaza, he used the sun's natural tendency to rise in the east to decide the direction and went north. Seventy-two hours remained.


End file.
